Grades represent what...
The concern with communicating grades to parents is the idea of what is represented by a numerical grade. I have had many great conversations with school leaders about “the truth in grading.” Robert Marzano mentions the concerns with our current grading process in The Mandate to Change Classroom Grading which was adapted from Transforming Classroom Grading, Robert J. Marzano, ASCD 2000. “…grades are so imprecise that they are almost meaningless. This straightforward but depressing fact is usually painfully obvious when one examines the research and practice regarding grades with a critical eye.” “Today’s system of classroom grading is at least 100 years old and has little or no research to support its continuation. At least three inherent problems make that system highly ineffective: (1) it allows, and even encourages, individual teachers to include, at their own discretion, different non achievement factors in the assignment of grades:(2) it allows individual teachers to diff